


How to Exist

by hanschen



Category: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25021336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanschen/pseuds/hanschen
Summary: A short series of vignettes in which each of the Fab Five get a turn to show off a skill and explore their friendships with each other. Five stories about owning your identity, the upsides of vulnerability, chafing, laundry detergent, and Egg McMuffins.(No romance, no sex—go elsewhere. Some cuddles if you’re lucky.)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	1. How to Fold a Fitted Sheet (Jonathan & Bobby)

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of being a responsible adult and wrapping up my two other unfinished fics, I decided to publish a new one because Mercury is in retrograde, Mars in Aries, and I am easily distracted
> 
> Some of these are fluff. Some are angst. They can all be interpreted as combos I guess.  
> Don't focus too hard on shit like timelines. I don't actually know whenever they film things.  
> Just sit back and enjoy some quality time with the boys. What's better than this? Guys bein dudes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***Trigger warning: brief mentions of injury and allusions to intimate partner violence***

Between filming seasons of Queer Eye, Jonathan looks for excuses to spend time with Bobby. If he goes two weeks without at least an hour of Bobby Berk Time, Jonathan literally breaks out in hives, he found out the hard way in late summer 2019. It’s possible it was a heat rash from choosing to do yoga at almost noon (he had trouble sleeping because he ran out of CBD oil, okay?) in cheap Walmart leggings (it was the only thing he could find that one time they had to spend the night in Amazonia, Missouri, okay?!), but WebMD said it could also be hives (Jonathan is finished explaining himself to you today).

So Jonathan hopped into his car with a basket of incriminating laundry in the backseat and called Bobby using his hands-free device.

“Hello, beautiful!” Bobby picked up after one ring.

“Bobby, listen.”

“You’re on your way over?”

“How did you know?

“Two weeks ago, you called me from your car on a Sunday morning, needing to come over so we could figure out the wallpaper situation in your bedroom. One week before that, you called from your car saying you had to drop off what you thought was my espresso machine. We still don’t know whose espresso machine it is.”

“It’s mine now.”

“Fair enough. What are you bringing me today?”

“Laundry.

“Oh, Jonathan.”

“No, because listen, I have some sort of weird rash—

“Don’t bring a rash into my house—

“I think it might be hives I think I might be allergic to my laundry detergent and it’s all been sitting here in an unfolded pile please can I just bring it over so Dewey can look at it and tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

“Dewey’s a surgeon, not a dermatologist.”

“Please Bobby please.”

“He’s not even here right now.”

“Do you want to hang out until he comes back?”

“Yes.”

Twenty-five minutes of traffic and one stop at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf later, Jonathan sat next to his laundry basket on Bobby’s nice tan leather couch in the living room, which had the most light and space (two things very important for proper laundry folding, Bobby said). He flicked the condensation from his cold brew off his fingers and onto the floor.

“How about some coasters for us?” Bobby said to the drop of water on his dark polished wood floor.

“I know, I’m a water monster.”

Bobby sighed and got up to fetch the coaster from the kitchen. “You’re not a monster.”

There was something about Bobby’s resigned tone that didn’t sit well with Jonathan, so he didn’t say anything back. He just reached out with his leg and used his watermelon-print sock to mop up the drop.

Eventually, Bobby came back in with a washcloth and a coaster. He reached toward the ground with the washcloth, but paused. “Where is it.”

“I got it already.”

“With what?”

“My sock.”

“Jonny, ew.”

“My sock is clean-ish!”

“No, I meant, ew for you, now you have to have a wet sock. Do you want a fresh pair? Let me get you some.”

Just as he got up, Jonathan pictured what would happen if he was left alone while Bobby did something for him yet again. He would probably explode into a scattered bloody gay mess on the floor, and that would be too big of a mess to leave Bobby with. He reached out and grabbed Bobby’s arm just as he got up. “No don’t leave me again. I came to spend time with you over iced coffees. Not have you Virgo around the house doing chores all day.”

Bobby smiled. He couldn’t resist a bit of attention, especially not when coupled with recognition of how attentive he was to chores. He sat back down and stirred his straw around the iced coffee Jonathan brought him. “So what do you want to talk about today?”

“Do you ever feel like you never had a full handle on how to be a healthy functional adult?”

Bobby stopped stirring and they just sat making eye contact for a minute. Just when Jonathan was starting to feel his face getting hot, Bobby shifted his eyes to the expensive dimmer fixtures above them. “I never thought too hard about it. I guess when I was first trying to learn how to be a healthy functional adult, to me, it just meant finding free food so I could eat that day, or collecting change for some gas to get to a job interview. Once I figured out that stuff, everything else seemed easy by comparison. So yeah, I guess I never had a _handle_ on it, it just sort of worked out.”

“What you just said sort of makes what I'm about to say sound juvenile, but I'm just gonna rip off that band-aid.”

“Go for it.”

“Can you teach me how to fold my laundry the right way?”

Bobby’s reaction was everything Jonathan loved about their friendship in a nutshell: he didn’t laugh, he didn’t make a judgmental face, he just reached out and grabbed the laundry basket. The item on top was a washcloth. “For these longer guys I like to do a double tri-fold.”

Bobby laid it out on his lap like he was changing a baby. Jonathan grabbed another washcloth and did the exact same thing.

“Just bring these edges both halfway in—”

“Hot dog style?”

“Yes, and then do another trifold the other way,”

“Hamburger style.”

“Right. And then the littler guys, you can just do one trifold, and then fold it in half.”

They flipped their way through the washcloths at the same time, Bobby periodically reaching over to straighten Jonathan’s edges. At some point, he looked up at Jonathan and asked, “So, how’s dating going?”

Jonathan sighed dramatically and tossed the last washcloth on to Bobby’s even pile. “I feel like I’m being penalized for being honest.”

Bobby kept his eyes on Jonathan even as he fixed the crooked edge of that last washcloth. “Go on?”

“I stop getting responses on any of the apps as soon as I say I’m looking for something long term. I went out with one guy a friend set me up with and it went SO GREAT and he even memorized all the cats names ahead of time, but then at the end of the date I mentioned something about wanting two more before we go home together, and he seemed fine but then he never called me back.”

“Did you call him?”

“Yeah, he didn’t pick up.”

“Fuck him, then. He’s not serious. You deserve someone serious.” Bobby reached into the laundry pile and pulled out a bath towel. “Do you prefer these folded or rolled?”

“Rolled would be so cute.”

“Do one fold in half like this—”

“Hot dog style—”

“Either way, I guess, depending on what you want the roll to look like, but yeah it could be that way, and then you just roll it up real tight.” He slowly rolled it up, expertly making a tight little cylinder. “What happened to that one guy you were seeing a few times, a few months ago? Richie, was it?”

“Wait, no fair, look, mine has like… spill over fabric.” Jonathan whined as he pulled at an overlapping diagonal edge at the end of the roll.

“Just unroll it again and keep it tighter as you go.”

Jonathan unrolled and started again. “Yeah, I really liked him and I thought he really liked me too, but it just sort of evaporated.”

“What do you mean? Did he ghost you?”

“No, I am way too loud to get ghosted. He did sort of stop responding but then so did I. I think the last text in our conversation was from him. But he just wanted to know where he should go for a vinyasa class or something.”

“Got it,” Bobby took out the rest of the laundry basket, mostly sheets, so he could start piling the towels on the bottom like neat little brick walls. “Do you think you’re ready for the fitted sheet?”

“God no I’m not ready. Let’s do the flat sheet first.”

Bobby picked up the aqua-colored flat sheet. “It’s easier to do it with two people. Here.” He handed Jonathan two corners. “Now we bring them together.”

“This is cute. It’s like we’re group-hugging a sheet.”

“Exactly. And then…” He handed the two corners he was holding to Jonathan. “Now just keep bringing your hands together until it’s all folded up.”

“Shoot, there’s like a weird bubble of fabric.”

“I think you let go of a corner somehow.”

“What do I do?”

“Start again.” Bobby sat down on the couch as Jonathan “ugh”ed and let the sheet flop back open. “What did you like about that guy that made you want to keep dating him?”

“Well, I liked that he knew about a lot of things in my life, so I didn’t have to explain it, we could just get right to talking about the interesting stuff. Like, he was a camera operator on one of those TLC reality shows for a while, so he knows about that whole reality show lifestyle.”

“Which show?”

“I forgot.”

“I hope it was _90 Day Fiancé.”_

“And he was bisexual so he understood the queer stuff.”

“So you guys had great conversations.”

Jonathan spoke into the sheet he balanced under his chin as he flipped his wrists around, bringing corners together continuously. “Right. Sometimes they got heated, even. Especially like talking about things like bi erasure. And other erasures. Big deal to him. But I kinda liked when they got heated.”

Bobby swallowed hard. “Right.” He turned his wide open eyes to the sheet. “That looks pretty good.”

“If you approve then it’s going away forever,” Jonathan tossed it into the laundry basket. Bobby didn’t bother to reach in and fix it.

“Let’s try a fitted sheet and see how it goes.”

“Don’t get your hopes too high, Brendon Urie.”

“It’s tricky.” Bobby reached for the tie-dye sheet. “Just watch me the first time, and then you’ll try. It’s just basically a matter of stuffing corners into each other, like a nesting doll, until you can sort of fold it over to cover the ugly parts.”

Jonathan watched Bobby’s hands go through secret invisible openings until suddenly he just had a neat square. “No, you didn’t. That’s magic. How the fuck did you do that?”

“Practice.”

Bobby flipped open the sheet back to square one, and Jonathan cringed. “That was like watching someone rip the Mona Lisa in half.”

Bobby cackled and handed it to him. “Just try it. Feel it out. It’ll look hideous the first couple times.”

“That’s what they said in cosmetology school.”

Bobby smiled but didn’t laugh all the way at that. “Why do you think that relationship just sort of petered out?”

“Beats me, Bobbers. It just stopped getting interesting to argue after a while. Like, I stopped looking forward to it.”

“Did you guys have sex?”

“Yes,” Jonathan said, making sure to keep his voice measured. If you could call that sex. He wasn’t going to judge anyone for kinks, but what do you call someone wanting to be spanked, then going right to sleep afterwards? The guy was so lazy about it, Jonathan didn’t even feel comfortable calling it full-blown BDSM. “It was… complicated.”

“Complicated? How so?”

Jonathan “ugh”ed again, and not just because he somehow left out an entire corner of the sheet and needed to start again. Of course he shouldn’t have just called it _complicated,_ of course Bobby would want to know more. “It just seemed like I never felt satisfied, and I could never word why I wasn’t, and then that just made it worse.”

“How many times did you feel that way?”

“Like, most of the time… maybe every time I guess.”

“And you kept seeing him?”

“This is distracting me, I think.” Jonathan noticed as he lost track of a corner yet again.

He expected Bobby to say they should be quiet and focus on the sheet, but instead he said, “Put that down for a sec, then. This sounds important.”

Jonathan kept the sheet in his lap so he could bury his hands in the soft material. “What sounds important?”

“I’m just curious why you stuck with the guy for a matter of months if it didn’t sound too redeeming.”

“I told you, he made for a really good conversation.”

“So do I.”

“Listen, it’s like—” Jonathan took a long sip of his now watered-down cold brew to give himself a boost before getting into this idea. “A real relationship takes work,” Jonathan said, putting on his calmest Oprah voice. “Right? Like sometimes you have to have those conversations that are like, not fun? At all?” He recalled a previous conversation with Tan about how okay Rob was with how touchy Tan got with the Fab Five, or rather, how he wasn’t okay with it in the early parts of the show. But Tan explained how it just took a few dinnertimes spent hashing it out, and soon enough, Rob was okay with Tan sitting in whoever’s lap. Jonathan also had a feeling that Tan, in all his charm, must have hit just the right buttons and unlocked a cheat code to get out of Rob being mad at him. “That’s part of a strong relationship though, is recognizing the hard stuff and not shying away from it, just like… dealing with it head on.”

Bobby made an exasperated, huffy little face, just to show he knew what Jonathan meant. Jonathan loved those faces. He giggled and resisted the urge to pinch Bobby’s cheek. “I mean, yeah. You have a good point. In fact, the occasional not-fun conversation should be a sign of good communication. I can’t imagine what kind of conversation Tan had to have with Rob for him to be cool with you guys pinching his nipples on Instagram. He spent like ninety percent of his time in Kansas City in your lap.”

Jonathan was too spooked by Bobby’s mind-reading capabilities to do anything else except finish his cold brew.

“But see, that’s the thing, to Tan and Rob it probably comes naturally to slip in and out of those discussions when they need to. They’ve got a decade under their belts, which is plenty enough time to have seen some shit they need to work on. It makes sense that they need to have big talks. A few months is too much time to keep needing big talks constantly because you always feel bad.”

“I thought all relationships that are strong take work. Like even early on there’s some work to get to know each other and how to communicate.”

“There’s a difference between working on your relationship and…” Bobby paused to scratch his head. Another on the miles-long list of things Jonathan liked about Bobby: he almost always knew what to say, but when he didn’t, he didn’t mind taking a pause to collect his thoughts. Again, the opposite of what Jonathan would do. “There’s a difference between a relationship that needs work and a relationship that _won’t_ work.”

“How do I know the difference?”

“Wow, you're really giving me a run for my money today.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry, keep me on my toes! I’m having trouble wording what I’m trying to say.”

Bobby thought for a moment, absentmindedly chewing on a fingernail, ignoring a text that vibrated his phone. Eventually Bobby reached for the fitted sheet. He folded it in his lap, going very slowly so Jonathan could see.

When he was done, he said, his voice quiet, “I know you were seeing that new guy. And I know you said he liked to… experiment in bed. And then you came in to production that one day with that black eye… and you were so quiet that morning.” He hadn’t made eye contact for a moment. He just messed with the ruffled corners of the bed sheet. “And then you said that the conversations got heated. I just wanted to— you know you can tell me anything, right?”

Jonathan strained to remember for a moment, combing his memories of the last time they were in production, then it finally came back. That black eye he needed extra time at hair and makeup to cover. It took a half hour to work on that alone, and he felt so guilty for wasting the makeup peoples’ time that he decided that wasn’t the day to bother them with chatter. So instead of his usual round of questions to the makeup gurus—do they prefer oat milk or hemp milk these days? Are they watching _The Great British Bake-Off?_ How did they get their hair that frizz-free so early in the morning?—Jonathan decided to stay silent for his entire timeout in the chair.

And now it started to make sense. Yes, that hot bisexual camera guy he had a series of encounters with. Who liked spanking and some other things. Some other things that he mentioned to the boys over late night queso and margs one stop in K.C. And the black eye he got right around the same time, but not from the kinky guy. He got it from a mishap with his ice skating boots. He had almost forgotten about it because he was so embarrassed by the origin of the injury that he put it out of his head. But he could see how it made sense, especially to someone like Bobby, who seeks patterns and formulas, A + B = C in his everyday life. “Ohhhhkay Bobby listen. That was an ice skating injury. It was really stupid.”

“That’s what Karamo you said you told him, but… I mean, what? How do you get _just_ a black eye from falling?” Bobby had his arms crossed while still holding his sheet, pressing it to his chest.

“I didn’t fall. That’s why it’s embarrassing. I can’t tell you. You’ll make fun of me until global warming finally eats us alive.”

Bobby stared at him, unblinking. Jonathan could pretty much read his mind— _You have to tell me._

Jonathan sighed and stretched out his legs. “So see, I was sitting here just like this, trying to put a new set of laces in the boots for my skates, right?” He pulled up his foot, bending his knee at an uncomfortable ninety-degree angle toward his face. “And I must have done it wrong the first time I put it in, like done it too tightly somehow, or with the wrong kind of lace, because this one old lace would NOT come through the little metal holes—”

“Eyelets.”

“’Kay, and so I pulled it and pulled it and pulled it for like fifty years, and finally I was like, you know what? I’m a strong human, I do push-ups, I HAVE upper body, I’m going to give like one super good yank and it’s gonna come through or I’ll sell my cats. And I can’t sell my cats. So I yanked it super hard, went totes She-Hulk on it, and it came out. And flew at my face. Along with my fist.”

Bobby was listening intently the whole time. Toward the end of the story, Jonathan could tell he was fighting a smile. Bobby fought through it to say, “That’s really it? You punched yourself in the face trying to lace up your boot? How come you were so quiet that day?”

“Because I punched myself in the face and I felt so stupid I didn’t want to curse the world with my dumb noises. I know that sounds dark but then after we were done in makeup, remember Antoni made us those golden lattes and I felt so much better.”

“I remember.” He handed the sheet he was holding to Jonathan. “Do you want to try again?”

“No. It looks too nice the way you did it.”

“Just practice. I promise yours will look this good one day.”

“Pinky promise right the heck now.” Bobby instantly reached out his hand for them to lock pinkies. He then opened his arms for a hug, which Jonathan was more than happy to launch his entire body into. “You may know how to fold a fitted sheet, but you can’t say you’re best friends with an actual literal fucking ray of sunshine,” Jonathan said, reaching up around Bobby’s shoulder to pet his blonde hair.

Jonathan expected Bobby was going to correct his usage of the word ‘literal’, but instead he just said, “Actually, I can say that.”

Jonathan hugged him harder, inhaling Bobby’s cologne, the herbal smell of his shampoo, and the smell of sunshine. Bobby always knew what to say.


	2. How to Run Long Distances (Karamo & Tan)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were ever sitting around like "I could really go for a Tan & Karamo character study with some sweaty imagery but not sexual" then boy have I got the chapter for you

Karamo couldn’t catch his breath, and they hadn’t even started running yet. He was leaning against the front desk of the Austin hotel they were staying in until long-term accommodations were made, trying in vain to stop his laughter.

“Grow up, Karamo Brown!” Tan said, even though he was fighting his own smile as he adjusted the placement of his phone and his deodorant in his pockets. “It wasn’t that funny.”

His voice high between giggles, Karamo managed to get out, “You looked like a dog peeing!” And then melted down into full-blown laughter again. This was caused by seeing Tan go through the following pre-running routine:

  1. He pulled up his little black running shorts as far as they could go.  
2\. He took out a stick of deodorant.  
3\. He pulled up his little tanned leg and slathered deodorant on his upper thigh.



Tan had been looking for an exercise buddy the previous night. Karamo agreed, if only because he was craving some private Tan time before he got too absorbed into the Tan-Antoni-JVN trio that always happened a week into filming. Karamo wasn’t jealous, per se—he was confident in the special bond he had with all three men, regardless of who hugged who the most on camera—but he was realistic about where Tan’s energy tended to go in the daylight hours.

Also, he knew Tan would probably lose motivation to do this every day once they really had a full production schedule rolling, so it wasn’t a long-term commitment to exercise or anything. Despite that, Tan said, as Karamo kept laughing, “You’re already making me regret not just doing this solo.”

“Alright, alright. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting you to walk around with a full stick of deodorant. You always smell so good.” Karamo reached out to poke Tan’s armpit. He squealed and jumped away, then started making his way to the front door of the hotel.

The sun was just rising. It was already warm. Karamo hoped Tan didn’t want to do this for too long, or he’d have to abandon Tan and duck into a Starbucks or something. Karamo wasn’t in the mood to get too sweaty and heated before their first day of filming. He liked to start these seasons as unruffled as possible. Clear eyes, full heart, all that.

He was thankful that Tan was starting by just walking down the block to the street corner. It was only six A.M., but Trinity Street was already busy. They waited at a crosswalk. Tan leaned over, attempting to stretch his hands to his toes. Karamo mirrored it.

As they were bent over, Tan looked at his sideways friend and said, “Oh! You know, the deodorant-- that’s not for odor down there. It’s to prevent chafing.”

“Chafing? Is that gonna happen to me?”

“Has it ever before?”

“I don’t know.”

“Karamo, when was the last time you did any cardio?”

“I use Ian’s stairmaster all the time!”

“If you don’t get it there, you’re probably fine. But do you want some?” He reached for his left pocket.

“Uh, no, I don’t want your crotch chafe stick. Thank you though.”

The crosswalk signaled for them, and Tan started jogging across. “Don’t come crying to me when you have bloody thighs.”

Tan had a small head start, but shorter legs, so Karamo caught up immediately. “Wait. Bleeding?”

“Yes, dear. You can chafe so hard you bleed.”

“Jesus.”

“The mountain air can get so dry, it happens to me all the time. Or it used to. Now I use that. Works like magic!”

“Who knew that the secret to Tan France’s impeccable style was deodorant?”

“Stick with me and you’ll pick up on all sorts of things.”

Karamo laughed, but didn’t say anything else. He was already getting a little bit out of breath, but Tan seemed unbothered, and he wanted to be able to keep up. Already, he felt a bit of disappointment. Witty banter with Tan was good, but he wasn’t getting the substantial talks he was looking for, the kind of friendship content Karamo truly found nourishing.

As soon as that thought passed, Karamo knew he had to follow up with it. Why did he feel the need to get something specific out of talking with Tan? Why wasn’t spending time with him enough?

As if Tan and his contrarian little self could hear Karamo’s thoughts, he turned to Karamo and said, “Penny for your thoughts?”

Of course, Karamo had eighteen different deep topics at the ready, but he said, “How does your hair stay so high while you’re running?”

“You’ve seen me work on it. You know how much hairspray it has.” Then Tan had to be the one to pause and catch his breath a little. “Come on. What are you thinking about, really?”

“Can we slow down, can we do like… intermittent… running… you know?” Tan slowed to a power walk. Karamo did too, and took a moment to pant.

Tan looked over at Karamo, smirking. “You think this is bad, go with Antoni to a training session one of these days.”

“No thank you, I’d like to live through the month.”

“I went to one of his leg days and I thought I was going to collapse in the shower afterwards.”

Karamo thought of Antoni and admired the devotion it must take to maintain that kind of body while eating as much cheese as he did. He also couldn’t help but compare spending time with Antoni to spending time with Tan, and yearn a bit for the ease of substantial talks with Antoni. Karamo getting Antoni to spill some sort of secret or share a feeling was like a professional baker cracking an egg. Tan and Karamo had a bond, no doubt, but Karamo sensed Tan kept him at arm’s length, especially in the last few months.

Tan stopped at the next street sign, dipping into a lunge to stretch, leaning a bit on the pole. “Karamo, seriously, what’s on your mind? I can practically hear the gears turning.”

Karamo let Tan’s soft British lilt wash over him and give him a bit of reassurance. He replayed the way Tan said _turning_ a few times in his head. Then he said, “I sense that you’ve been a little distant since we got to Austin.”

Tan looked from Karamo’s eyes to the street sign, to the intersection, to the path they came from. “We’ve only been here two days.”

That wasn’t a denial, which was a clear sign to Karamo that he was right—something was up. “If I’m wrong, that’s fine. Maybe I'm projecting some other issue onto you. But if something is up, you know you can tell me, right?”

Tan looked down at his shoes as he switched sides to stretch. “There’s nothing between us you need to worry about, my love. You know me. You know I’d just tell you.”

Again, Karamo felt like he got another green light. Nothing _between them._ Something was definitely wrong, and for a normally private person like Tan to let those little reveals slip—he might as well have rolled over and showed his belly. This needed investigating, but Karamo knew if he started an interrogation, it would backfire. So he just said, “Fair enough.” Then when they started walking again, Karamo said, “Doin’ okay down there in chafeland?”

“It’s doing more than okay! Thank you for checking in.”

“Wouldn’t want to stop jogging early, that’s for sure.”

Tan cackled at Karamo’s sarcastic tone. “No, we wouldn’t.” Then he took off running again. Karamo swore under his breath and started running next to him.

They gained a rhythm together—it wasn’t perfect synchronization, given their legs were such different lengths, but they managed to stay right next to each other. Their breath started to match. Their feet hit the pavement in two different but complementary beats. Their arms swayed at the same height.

This only lasted a few minutes before Karamo started to get out of breath again. He tried to tell himself it was good for him, but he had to slow to a walk.

Tan didn’t notice for a moment. Karamo called out, “I need another walking moment, Speedy McRabbit!”

Tan was startled to realize he didn’t notice, so he laughed and backtracked a few steps until they were walking side by side. Karamo laughed too, but in his head, he was just a bit hurt—how long would Tan not have noticed he was ahead?

In between panting, Karamo managed out, “How’s Rob?”

Tan didn’t look at Karamo. “He’s still an angel, of course. I miss him already.”

But then that was it.

Usually, when Karamo prompted Tan to talk about Rob, Tan would have launched into a full recap of all the things he had cooked for Rob lately, all the treats Rob was bringing home from their favorite Salt Lake City bakery, the latest beautiful illustration Rob came up with, and the perfect frame Tan already picked out for it.

Karamo wanted to ask more about it without prying. Before he could think of a way, Tan took off running again. “Whoa! I’m not ready!” Tan kept running. Karamo struggled to keep up. “Tanny! Please slow down for Grandpa!”

Tan didn’t stop. Not even to poke fun at Karamo’s age. This needed straightforward addressing, now. Karamo was only a couple feet behind Tan. So he reached forward to tap his shoulder as he said, “Tan, wait up, what’s going on?”

Tan turned to say something, and his phone fell out of his pocket. He stopped short. “FUCK!”

The ferocity of his reaction was startling. Tan picked up his phone, inspected it for damage, and started running again. Karamo had just gotten a few feet of a lead on him, finally, and felt a sense of accomplishment, but he slowed down again when he realized Tan went back to walking after just three or so seconds of running.

Karamo stood until Tan caught up, then walked alongside him. They walked together, not in perfect synch, but at least at a similar pace. Tan kept his eyes down, so Karamo looked up, and stopped them when they came to another intersection.

After a moment of silence, Tan looked up at the sky. The sun was just finishing rising. “It’s already so hot.” A bead of sweat ran down his temple from his silver hair. “Texas, you absolute beast.”

Karamo nodded, even though Tan wasn’t looking at him. When they got the signal to cross, he was ready for Tan to start running again, but they just took a leisurely walk together across the street.

They kept walking down the next block. They were surrounded by rows of ugly stucco townhomes. At some point, Tan reached out and held Karamo’s hand. Karamo squeezed it back.

Tan said, “I knew I shouldn’t have brought my phone running. That was stupid.”

“Why did you bring it?”

“I thought maybe I would miss something. Stupid. What is there to miss? We’re all here where we’re supposed to be.”

“Are you expecting a phone call?”

“No.”

“Then what prompted you bring it?”

“I don’t really know.”

“There had to be something.”

Tan waited for a few seconds, not letting go of Karamo’s hand, but he said, “Don’t shrink me, Karamo.” It was a phrase Tan said to him many times before, usually in jest, shouting it at him across a table full of nearly empty wine glasses, but this tone was a clear warning. If Tan had hackles, they’d be raised.

So Karamo didn’t say anything. He predicted this would also prompt Tan to express anger. He even timed it, a countdown in his head, _He’ll break this silence in three… two… one-_

Right on time, Tan pulled his hand away and faced Karamo: “Well, don’t say nothing either! That’s not right!”

“What’s not right about it?”

“I can tell you’re thinking about what I’m thinking!”

“Oh, are you a mind reader?”

“No, I just—can we just talk about something pleasant? I don’t really have anything in particular that’s wrong in my life. Honestly, I don’t. Sometimes I just get a little caught up in my thoughts, and I get a little moody. You know this, you’ve seen this.”

“I have, and yeah, you always make it through. But maybe you could let someone in a bit during the moods, and then you wouldn’t have to go through them alone.”

“Karamo, I’m fine. I have Rob, and I talked to Antoni a little last night too. Not that I don’t like to talk to you, it’s just—he was there, and he didn’t pry, he just has that way of—he’s just easiest to talk to sometimes.”

“Tan, I honestly didn’t mean to pry. But if it seems like I did, I think it’s just because I’m worried. Not that you don’t have it together, just that if you have a problem, you feel like you need to work through it by yourself.”

“I’m not by myself,” Tan said. It had a note of finality to it. He adjusted his pockets and started running again.

Karamo sighed, knowing it would be the last deep breath he would have for the next ten minutes at least.

They ran together for a few minutes. Again, Karamo felt exhausted so quickly. He looked down at his feet. Was it something in the strategy of how he was running? Maybe Tan would know. Maybe he should ask him.

Instead, what came out was, “What did you and Antoni talk about last night?”

He waited for the answer, focusing on the ground. Eye contact might make it seem aggressive, not conversational.

Tan didn’t respond. His footsteps also sounded quieter.

Karamo looked up and realized why Tan didn’t hear him. He was more than a few feet ahead. He was at least ten feet ahead. And this was rapidly increasing.

“Tan?” Karamo called out. He recognized right away it was kind of absurd to word it as a question, but when he was so out of breath, he knew that was as much of a question as he could muster. If Tan would only slow down, if only there weren’t now suddenly twenty feet of space between them, Karamo would ask him any of a laundry list of questions he had.

Like why was he running so fast? What did he want to get away from? Was it really Karamo, or was it something else entirely?

How long had Tan been running for?

If Karamo promised to stop asking questions, would Tan stop running away?

But it was too late. Tan was like an antelope, running straight into the sun. Karamo stopped running entirely, indulging on the feeling of a full stop over a cool down, his hands on his knees as his breath heaved.

Once he felt like finally had enough breath to shout a full question, he looked back up, only to see the last of Tan as he made a left turn off the path and into a tree-filled park Karamo wouldn’t have been able to find his way through if he tried.

Karamo squinted into the unbearable sun, trying to get an idea of what direction Tan was going in, but when sweat fell into his eyes, forcing him to blink, he had to let it go. And as soon as he turned around to go back toward the hotel, Karamo had to admit to himself that even though he had a list of tactics he usually used to get into people’s head, Tan would have deflected all of them. Tan would have to find his way back to their temporary home alone.


	3. How to Deal with a Panic Attack (Antoni & Karamo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *** Trigger warning: panic attacks, anxiety disorders ***

Antoni slid down the cool tile wall. He tried to focus on any and all of those things. It was cold from the blasting AC. It was smooth tile. It was a wall! One of at least four that surrounded him! But not in a suffocating way, no, just in a way that walls surround you when they’re definitely real.

Or maybe a little suffocating.

Now on top of having to convince himself he wasn’t dying of a heart attack, he also had to convince himself that the walls of the bathroom were in no danger of collapsing. Having to talk himself out of two different deaths alone was not only stressful but embarrassing, because he had manufactured a secondary worry in the middle of a panic attack.

All this to say, he could hear his own gasping breaths, which wasn’t helping.

If he was capable of thinking of anything else except Holy Fucking Shit I’m Dying I’m Really Dying It’s Not Just Another Panic Attack It’s Finally Happening, he would be grateful for the fact that it was one of those big handicap-accessible restrooms that was really its own little room, but then as soon as the shadow of that thought started to creep into his head, he also realized he was taking up space in a stall that a person with different abilities than him might need soon, but honestly isn’t a panic disorder a disability kind of if you think about it, and oh my god does this make him disabled, but oh no is this line of thinking problematic?, or is he not doing enough as a man in the public eye to speak about anxiety disorders now that the show just premiered and is #1 on Netflix after only one season is released, and really is he ever going to do enough, and

There was a knock at the door. “It’s Tan. May I come in?” Tan was at the door, Tan, Antoni’s perfect and beautiful and pure new best friend, who is so perfect though that if he sees what an ugly crying mess Antoni is during a panic attack, he will not want to be best friends anymore, so Antoni managed out a “No”

and then wanted to puke when he heard how weak it sounded, and how full of spit and mucus, and why would someone like Tan or Bobby or Jonathan for that matter want to be his friend, and really it made so much sense that Karamo was giving him the cold shoulder ever since he got the contract, because why would someone so handsome and mature want anything to do with Antoni as a friend and really Bobby Tan and JVN should stop wasting their time too and

“Please? Love, it wasn’t that bad.” Tan sounded so sad, and so now on top of dying, Antoni deserves to be in JAIL for making someone like Tan sound sad, sad enough to lie and say that the way Antoni just humiliated himself for the billionth time in an interview wasn’t that bad, and not only did Antoni embarrass himself but he embarrassed all of the others, and the show’s creators, and Ted Allen, and his agent, and Netflix itself, and whoever did the interview, and his family friends ancestors and—

There was another knock at the door. Antoni assumed it was probably Tan trying again, or Jonathan coming to hug him.

Instead, Karamo’s deep voice called out, “Hey, it’s Karamo. May I please come in? I want to help. If you don’t answer, I’m going to come in to make sure you’re safe.”

Mind-boggling because why would someone like Karamo who was again very handsome and very mature want anything to do with someone like Antoni, and besides, Karamo hadn’t seemed to want much to do with him lately even when Antoni did manage to string together something that looked like mental stability, but of course he understood how Karamo saw right through it

“Be careful of the door.”

Karamo came inside the room. Antoni didn’t know why the heck someone like Karamo would be coming into his pathetic panic room, except for maybe to scold him, which he would have every right to do, or maybe punch him, even though Karamo didn’t seem like the punching type,

Then Karamo sat down on the floor a few feet away from Antoni. “Talk to me. What’s happening?”

Antoni wanted to say OBVIOUSLY I CAN’T BREATHE AND/OR I’M DYING but the words wouldn’t come out because he couldn’t breathe because again, he was dying, so he just said, painfully aware of how pathetic it sounded, “I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—”

Karamo scooted a little closer, and it became obvious to Antoni instantly why Karamo hated him—Karamo was really the most handsome person alive, and all these people on the internet were saying Antoni was handsome, and he wondered if they would say that if they actually saw Karamo up close, and if they saw how gross Antoni looked with his sweat and breathing and who knows what else, and Karamo said, “Try to take deep breaths. I know it seems impossible. I know you think I’m crazy for suggesting it. I know you think you’re dying.”

How did Karamo know all that? Could he read Antoni’s mind? Or had he been talking out loud? What kind of sick dumb psycho idiot talks out loud and says all his useless panicky thoughts to someone so together like Karamo Brown, and why did he think it was possible to even breathe right now and honestly why everything? “ _No,_ you don’t—understand like—I can’t—breathe at all—it’s not—gonna work!”

Karamo reached a hand out. “May I touch you?” Antoni nodded, only because he couldn’t find the breath to word his thoughts, which were, of course, why would someone like Karamo want to touch Antoni, and why was he bothering to help such a lost cause, and why did Karamo want to touch him NOW? Just earlier that week, in a different interview, one that Antoni managed not to humiliate himself in, Antoni put a hand on Karamo’s shoulder and Karamo shrugged it off, and Antoni felt like his hand was on fire for the rest of that day.

And now here was Karamo, taking his shaky hand, holding it in both of his. “You’re safe here with me. I won’t let you die. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Just focus on breathing; I know you can do it.” Antoni started to stutter out how wrong Karamo was, he was usually right, but today he was wrong, okay MAYBE Antoni won’t DIE but he certainly couldn’t BREATHE. Karamo continued, “Do it in and out with me. In—one, two, three, four. Out—one, two, three, four. Try to count as you breathe in.” He repeated the counting process, and Antoni wanted to scream at him, FOUR IS IMPOSSIBLE, even one seemed impossible, but he tried to do that, tried to indulge Karamo’s impossible counting, in his head going, _In! One! Out! One! In! One! Out! When will it be more than one!!!_

Even though Antoni felt like he was failing this exercise, Karamo smiled at him, which Antoni had maybe not seen him do for three months, and he said, “Good! You’re doing great, Antoni. Keep going. In… hold it, one, two, three, four… out, one, two, three, four. Good. You sound better.”

Did he? Seemed unlikely. But Antoni kept listening to Karamo’s counts. Okay maybe he wasn’t failing, but Antoni wouldn’t call only being able to count to two “doing great.” Still, it was kind of soothing just to hear Karamo doing it, and to focus only on that counting, the counting that was light years ahead of where Antoni’s counting was, and probably would always be. Karamo said, “Can you count out loud with me?”

Antoni knew that was a hopeless endeavor, but tried it. “One… two… three… fuck—”

“It’s okay, keep going. Try again. Breathe out, breathe out, don’t forget to breathe out.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying—”

“It’s okay, you’re doing amazing. You’re so strong, Antoni. Breathe in, one, two, three, four. Breathe out, one, two, three, four.”

Antoni lost count of how many times they did this, able to focus only on trying to get to four, trying to meet Karamo where he was at, somehow, some day. Then he realized on one breathe-in that he had been clenching Karamo’s hands in a death grip. “One, two, three, I’m sorry—I’ll let go.”

“You don’t have to, it’s fine. I’ve felt worse. Keep breathing. See? You got it. You don’t even need me.”

Antoni laughed at this, and Karamo laughed back, then Antoni gasped when he realized the laughing sent him back to two. Karamo said, “It’s okay, you still got it. Keep counting. In… out… see? Antoni Porowski, gorgeous chef, nutrition pro, wine god, and now he’s a breathing inspiration too. What can’t he do?”

Antoni laughed again, and somehow he didn’t get thrown off his counting, so maybe Karamo was onto something there. “This is so nice… you’re so nice… I really don’t deserve this.”

“You do. You deserve people supporting you, and you deserve to not be so hard on yourself.”

Antoni cringed, thinking of the dumb thing he said in that interview, and also all the other dumb things he said, always and forever, and his breathing was still in the realms of one-two-three-four or something like it, but he felt his arms quiver and his legs go all jellylike. He rubbed them, trying to get some feeling back, and Karamo said, “Hey, Ant? You still with me? Or do you feel not really all there?”

Antoni heard that, but it sounded far away. “I feel not really all there.”

“Look around the room. Name five things you see.”

“Five things I see,” Antoni repeated, trying to make the words sound like words, make his voice sound like his voice. He looked around, just seeing a Bathroom and Walls and Stuff.

“Say them out loud. Say specific things. I see… some dust on top of the paper towel dispenser. What else is in here that you see?”

Antoni tried to get his eyes to uncross. “I see… walls.”

“What color are they?”

“Um… white? Off-white.”

“I agree. What else?”

“Um… toilet? It’s pretty clean… for a toilet. It has an automatic flusher. Um, there’s a sink, it’s metal. There’s… flourescents. It’s not really great lighting.”

“I second that.”

“And a trash can. Also metal. And there’s…” He looked around, making eye contact with Karamo. Karamo kept his eyes focused on Antoni’s, wide open, like he was talking about the most interesting topic in the world. “You. I see you. Does that count?”

Now Karamo smiled, all white teeth. “Of course it does. I’m as real as you are. Can you name three things you can touch?”

“Um. Just this.” Antoni looked down at his hands, wrapped up again in Karamo’s. He didn’t remember reaching back out to take Karamo’s hands again. But they felt better there.

“Anything else?”

“I don’t want to touch anything else.” He didn’t mean for it to come out sounding hostile, so he was relieved when Karamo just moved on.

“Understandable. What do you feel around your body right now? What’s the wall behind you feel like?”

“Hard. Kind of cold. Like the floor. Same thing.”

“Good.”

“I think I feel present now. Thank you.”

“Let’s keep going for a minute. Just to get really grounded. Are there two things you smell?”

“Well… this is a pretty clean bathroom, so not really. I guess…” He lifted the collar of his polo to his nose. “My cologne.”

“Hell yeah. That John Varvatos is nice.”

“Thank you for recognizing.”

Karamo almost laughed. “One more thing you can smell.”

Antoni looked around. “Hand soap?”

“Sure. Can you name one thing you can taste?”

“Not really. I didn’t finish my coffee… it’s out there somewhere. Should I go taste that?”

“I don’t think you need coffee right after a panic attack.”

“Right,” Antoni looked down at his hands. They were maybe still a little shaky, but they weren’t vibrating, and they were definitely his hands. His very much alive hands. “It’s always so weird to think that just two minutes ago, I thought I was dying.”

“Do you have panic attacks often?”

“No. It happens when everything sort of starts to pile up.”

“You should talk to someone you trust about what’s piling up.”

Antoni fiddled with his cuticles, not wanting to address what he felt was an obvious statement within that: someone who’s not him. If Karamo wanted to know what was piling up, he would have asked, not given advice. It occurred to Antoni, in that post-panic attack honeymoon stage, where you can feel your life force start to trickle back, that there was only one way to address the piling up: by not letting it become a pile so much in the first place. “You don’t want to be the one to talk to me about it.”

Karamo was able to cover up most of the surprise in his face, but not quite all of it. “That’s not true. You know I’ll always listen to you. We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, I thought, but you haven’t been very nice to me lately.”

This time he didn’t cover up the look on his face. It wasn’t surprise. It was something else. “You’re sure it’s not the other way around?”

“… No. I don’t remember being mean to you but I wouldn’t put it past me.”

“I wouldn’t either, I mean, you did—wait, come on. You know what you said.”

“I don’t but I’m sure it was stupid.”

Antoni looked at his shoes. They were awfully nice. Why did he wear his nicest leather shoes on a publicity day like this, when all the interviews would be chest up? That day was really not his best for decision-making. And if he did say something however long ago to make Karamo mad at him, then he figured he better fix it before he hurt someone else.

Karamo did look hurt, or thoughtful, or something. He had sat back against the wall across from Antoni, hard, his back settling against it with a thud.

Karamo and Antoni started talking at the same time. Karamo gestured for Antoni to go on, but Antoni said, “No, I think I said enough. You go on. Really.”

Karamo shook his head and laughed. “I think I was lied to about you, Antoni.”

“You… what?”

“Someone said you something about me behind my back, but now I realize…” He laughed so hard he clapped his hand and tilted his head back. “Why do I ever believe producers?”

Antoni laughed too, not really knowing what was funny, or what was going on. “I don’t know.”

“I won’t make that mistake again. What were you going to say?”

“I think I need to go back to therapy.”

“I love that discovery for you.” Karamo had pushed himself up and stood in front of Antoni. “Do you want help?”

“Oh, no, but thank you. I had someone on the east coast. I don’t know if he’ll do appointments over the phone, but maybe he’ll know someone out here he can recommend until I can get back over there, or maybe I can just—”

“I meant off the ground.”

“Oh.” Antoni took Karamo’s warm, strong hands, and they pulled up to his feet. He felt a little shaky when he stood. As if Karamo read his mind, he was pulled into a hug. The first one he had from Karamo since they first met at auditions. It was maybe the best hug he ever had. He could feel his eyes fill with tears.

“But I do also have recommendations for therapists in this area.”

“How do you know exactly what to do all the time?”

“I don’t. I just try. And count to four while I wait to see if it worked.”

Though a tear leaked out from one eye and onto Karamo’s jacket, adding to the list of things Antoni felt guilty about it, he didn’t pull away. “It worked.”


	4. How to Apply a Face Mask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***TW: panic attacks***

Does Tan France seem like a together person to you?

When he shades people just right on Instagram, does it seem to come to him naturally? When he dashes around the stores on _Queer Eye_ pulling shirts, does it seem like the entire store has been built around what he feels like poking at that day? When he walks down the red carpet, does it seem like not a thread nor a hair nor a single eyelash is out of place?

 _Seem_ is a funny word, because of course it’s based on assumptions. Normally Tan would say that’s okay, because this is a funny life, and his career path has taken a dozen funny turns.

Everything seemed less funny when he got his third public panic attack, in a grocery store that didn’t have the specific type of Cadbury’s chocolate for the pie he was planning to make, when he specifically went to that grocery store because he had _seen_ it there before, but perhaps it had just _seemed_ like they had it, and those words are similar, and that would be funny, except it wasn’t very funny for Rob to see Tan holding onto a shelf with one hand as he hyperventilated, using his other hand to stretch the shit out of his pink beanie by pulling all the way down over his face for a last-ditch effort at disguising himself.

It wasn’t the growing frequency of the panic attacks that finally got Tan to a therapist, and it wasn’t Rob’s urging (Tan had finagled his way out of a number of Rob suggestions in their relationship). It was that apparently Rob spotted someone with their phone out coming down that aisle of the grocery store.

_Tan’s red eyes fixed on Rob in the car. He paused from rubbing in the calming lavender lotion deep into his hands. “She had her phone out, like coming towards me, to record me?”_

_“Yes, Tan. She was staring at us before that. She recognized you back in the dairy aisle.”_

_“Shit. How much do you think she got?”_

_“No, she didn’t actually record.”_

_“I’m sorry, what?”_

_“She held up her phone for a second, then we made eye contact, and she put her phone down with this sort of… sad look on her face.”_

Vultures, public embarrassment, TMZ reporting. These were all things Tan could take.

Not pity.

His therapist, a pretty blonde woman with just the right amount of work done to her face, heard all of this with a severely thoughtful look in her plucked eyebrows. “What’s the worst that could happen if someone pities you?”

He didn’t want to be rude to her, but he threw up his hands and stared at her in amazement. “What’s the worst that could happen? How should I know? What’s also the worst that could happen if they feel amusement, or sheer joy, or—I don’t know—thirst or hunger? What’s the worst that could happen if anyone feels anything? Eventually any number of bad things could happen. What’s the worst that could happen if someone looks at me and thinks I’m a dirty immigrant here to blow up their country? Violence. Violence could happen. That’s the worst.”

He couldn’t even remember what the exact words were that she said next, but it used the word “catastrophizing.” The second he walked out after the forty-five minutes were up, the first thing he did was text Karamo for recommendations for a therapist in the L.A. area who was a person of color, and who knew what the fuck they were doing.

Karamo did text him a few suggestions, and the little text tones on his phone were far enough apart that Tan knew Karamo was also probably sending long paragraphs of unsolicited advice. He was thankful there was a whole twenty or so minute car ride from the therapist to Jonathan’s house, lest he snap at Karamo unnecessarily. It’s not that he was so worried about hurting Karamo’s feelings, but if you snap at Karamo, it tends to usher in a whole secondary conversation about “unpacking” whatever preceded it, and holy shit Tan was just tired of talking about his feelings that day.

It must have read on his face, because what a relieving first hour it was with Jonathan. The second Tan took off his simple black face mask upon entering, and Jonathan cracked a joke about how he only lets people into his pod who wear masks that match their hats, Tan knew it was going to be a perfect rest of the day. Within the first few minutes, Tan had been laughing so hard at another one of their nonsensical inside jokes that it sent him into tripod position, gasping for air. Then in the next ten minutes, they managed to work their way through half a jar of Biscoff (mindful of germs, they scooped a huge single portion each onto their spoons to avoid double-dipping, then cracked up again when it kept dropping onto their fingers). And after twenty minutes of catching up, chattering back and forth with gossip about everyone they knew, it was time for face masks.

Tan sat on the edge of Jonathan’s bath tub, kicking his shea-butter-infused-socked feet back and forth as he started applying the avocado honey mask Jonathan made especially for him.

Jonathan looked over from the mirror he stood in front of where he applied some sort of cucumber gel concoction. “Oh no, Tanny, stand in front of the mirror and do it.”

“I’m good, I really want to be off my feet for these little slippers to work.”

Jonathan cackled. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does! I want them to relax into it.”

“Okay, then I’m coming over in a sec to get the spots you can’t see so well. Let me just wash my hands.”

“I’ve got it, love.”

“Well, let me show you, just let me show you. It has to get everywhere like right up in these crooks, those are important spots.”

“Jonathan, no. I’ve been doing face masks for years. I get the gist.”

“You’re putting it like right into your eyebrows.”

Jonathan reached up for Tan’s face. Just when he was about to touch the green goo, Tan slapped Jonathan’s hand away. The sound echoed. Tan said with a deeper voice than Jonathan remembered ever hearing, “I said NO. DON’T TOUCH ME.”

Jonathan retracted his hands to his side like he had burned. In fact, he looked a little like he was. Tan could see his face go red through the mask, and he looked down and away at such a sharp, quick angle that a couple drops of green fell onto his Adidas track pants. Right away, Tan grabbed a washcloth and scooped them up. Then he figured he might as well finish applying his own mask. It was silent except for the small wet noises of his fingers pushing the mixture around. When he was done, he got up and rinsed his hands. Like they were playing musical chairs with no music, Jonathan cleared the way to the sink for him by circling around and going to sit on the tub. Tan felt him staring, and hoped Jonathan was staring at his face, not his hands. They were shaking, just a bit, just enough that Tan only noticed when he turned the water off.

Then he looked up at Jonathan’s face in the mirror. “That was a bit of an overreaction.”

“No it wasn’t. I’m sorry. I should have, you know.”

“No, what?”

“No what, what?”

Now Tan looked at Jonathan’s face directly. Only Tan France had the ability to be taken seriously when he had a mask the color of a Shamrock shake all over his sharp features, and he knew it. But ironically, he could not take one more goddamn thing in this world at face value. “Love, I did overreact. And I’m sorry about that. But do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”

Jonathan felt his heartbeat pick up. He was good at offering a first apology. So good, in fact, that it disarmed people enough that they ignored whatever was wrong. Tan had a feeling that was kind of the idea. “I’m sorry I touched your face?” Tan heard the confusion in his voice and raised an eyebrow, straight through the avocado goop. “I am!”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“Well… I don’t know. I _do_ know I hate making you uncomfortable…”

“Explain that ellipsis.”

Jonathan was blushing again. Tan rarely induced this in him. Usually it was Antoni doing something like touching his butt or Bobby one-upping with a perfect smartass comment. Both blushes would double up in strength if these were in the middle of an interview. And then both Ant and Bobby would comment on the blushing, making it worse.

But it got to Tan, seeing him struggle with his words, so Tan said, “It was a different reaction than you’re used to, and I think we should talk about why.”

“Well, yeah. I mean I literally touch your face all the time. Literally on _Watch What Happens Live._ Literally like two feet away from Andy Cohen I touched your face the same way. Thumbs forward all aggro and everything.”

That was true. And Tan didn’t have an explanation for it. Sometimes he really minded when Jonathan did all that. Sometimes he didn’t mind one bit. And a lot of the time he felt somewhere in between. He couldn’t think of exactly why this was, so he bought time by slowly shuffling over to sit next to Jonathan at the bath tub.

When he did, Jonathan started making soft little thinking noises. Tan was grateful that it sounded like he was going to speak next, because he hadn’t come to any conclusion that was helpful to say out loud.

Finally, Jonathan said, “When I say this next bit, may I hold your hand? You can definitely say no. Like, I’d encourage it, even. Like, I want to touch your soft little hands but if you don’t want that, then my wanting it drops by nine thousand percent. Okay?”

“You can.”

Jonathan heaved a sigh of relief and brought their hands together with gentle slowness. “I want you to know that you can always talk to me about that stuff. And anything else out of all the… hard stuff I know you go through sometimes… like I know you’re going through now. I know I don’t, like, _seem_ like the kind of person but I am. I seem like the kind of person you just come over to talk about _The Crown_ with and stuff. And I am that too! But I’m also the kind who wants to hear about the less easy stuff. Okay?”

Tan didn’t want to cry, but felt the shadow of tears prick his eyes. “Okay. But I don’t want to right now. Okay?”

“Okay.”

And then they sat on the tub for a minute or so, swinging their feet back and forth, holding hands. Without letting go of Tan’s hand, Jonathan extended the entire rest of his torso and arm so he could reach toward the counter and take the lid off of a candle in a tin. Then he reached out toward a lighter and somehow, impressively, managed to light it with his one stretched out hand. But when he reached toward the candle, he knocked it into the sink, with a soft “Oh fuck oh Jesus.”

That comment made Tan laugh so hard that after a few seconds he fell backward into the tub. He didn’t stop laughing even though his head may have _clonked_ against the wall. When it made that little thump noise, Jonathan started laughing too, not so hard he also fell into the tub, but he crawled his way into it anyway. This time, when Tan teared up, it was because he was laughing so hard, not crying for real. Even though this visit had involved bumping his head, crying on the edge of a bathtub, snapping at Jonathan, and a smeared face mask, he still wouldn’t have traded it for the world. It may not have _seemed_ like a perfect evening, but it was.


End file.
